Saint Joseph’s University Announces Jean McGivney-Burelle, PhD, as New Provost and Senior Vice President of Academic Affairs

Jean McGivney-Burelle, PhD, an accomplished higher education leader and teacher-scholar with more than two-and-a-half decades of experience, will assume the role of provost and senior vice president of academic affairs at Saint Joseph’s University, effective June 17, 2024. She will succeed Interim Provost James Carter, PhD, who served in the role since last May, prior to which Cheryl McConnell, PhD, now president, served since 2019.

McGivney-Burelle joins Saint Joseph’s from Idaho State University, an institution with comprehensive academic programs and multiple locations, where she served as dean of the College of Education and as a professor in the Department of Teaching and Educational Studies since 2020. During her tenure, she significantly increased external grant funding and fundraising in the college; increased the percentage of faculty and staff from underrepresented backgrounds from 15% to 22%; established articulation and co-enrollment agreements with the College of Southern Idaho; invested $1 million in funding to support student scholarships, faculty research, innovative teaching and student engagement projects; and launched a suite of fully online education programs; among many other impressive accomplishments.

“Dr. McGivney-Burelle is a champion of inclusive leadership with a keen understanding of academic culture,” says President Cheryl McConnell, PhD. “What was clear to me and our search advisory committee is that she is an innovative and strategic thinker capable of leading complex institutions and sustained academic growth. As we continue to diversify our portfolio, expand our roots in Lancaster and elevate the national profile of Saint Joseph’s, I am confident that she is precisely the leader we need at the helm.”

Prior to her time at Idaho State University, McGivney-Burelle was with the University of Hartford from 2005-2015, where she held a faculty appointment in the Department of Mathematics and assumed numerous and complex leadership roles that underscored her commitment to shared governance and collaborative leadership. 

During her 15 years with the university, she was the inaugural executive director of the university’s Center for Teaching Excellence and Innovation; associate dean of budget and finance for the College of Arts and Sciences; chair of the Department of Education in the College of Education, Nursing and Health Professions; and director of the mathematics/secondary education program. Her ability to take on multiple leadership roles concurrently was proven time and again, as she seamlessly assumed additional university-level leadership roles as chair, co-chair or director of committees and task forces that ranged from strategic planning to academic technology. 

Before joining the University of Hartford, McGivney-Burelle was part of the faculty of the University of Connecticut and Southern Connecticut State University. In her 26-year career, she has received numerous awards and fellowships, including Innovations in Teaching and Learning at the University of Hartford, Leadership Cohort Fellow of the Network for Educational Renewal, and Project NEXT Fellow of the Mathematical Association of America.

McGivney-Burelle received her PhD in curriculum instruction with an emphasis on mathematics education from the University of Connecticut, her master’s in mathematics with an emphasis on combinatorics and graph theory from Northeastern University, and her bachelor’s in mathematics from University of Hartford.